"We were quite surprised since this patient hadn't grown scalp hair since the age of two, and other treatments that can help with hair loss did not in her case," said study senior author, Dr Maryanne Makredes Senna, of Massachusetts General Hospital, USA.

"As far as we know, this is the first report of hair regrowth with dupilumab in a patient with any degree of alopecia areata."

As well as longstanding alopecia, the teenager had also lived with extensive, treatment-resistant eczema since she was just seven-months-old.

She had been put on prednisone and methotrexate - two medications that can suppress an overactive immune system and lead to initial improvement in her eczema but no hair regrowth.

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Recent studies have suggested that other elements of that pathway might induce autoimmune hair loss - which then might explain how a drug used to treat one condition may help with the other.

"Right now, it's hard to know whether dupilumab could induce hair growth in other alopecia patients, but I suspect it may be helpful in patients with extensive active eczema and active alopecia areata," Dr Senna added.

"We've submitted a proposal for a clinical trial using dupilumab in this patient population and hope to be able to investigate it further in the near future."

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